Three Rooms Press is a fierce New York-based independent publisher inspired by dada, punk and passion. Founded in 1993, it serves as a leading independent publisher of cut-the-edge creative, including fiction, memoir, poetry translations, drama and art.

PLUS the ALWAYS EXCITING fabulous OPEN READINGwhich you can participate in (sign ups start at 5:45 p.m.)

Greg Moglia is a veteran of 27 years as Adjunct Professor of Philosophy of Education at N.Y.U. and 37 years as a high school teacher of Physics and Psychology. His poems have been accepted in over 100 journals in the U.S., Canada and England as well as five anthologies. He is four times a winner of an Allan Ginsberg Poetry Award sponsored by the Poetry Center at Passaic County Community College. His poem ‘Why Do Lovers Whisper?’ has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize 2005. He has been nominated by the College of William and Mary for the University of Virginia anthology BEST NEW POETS OF 2006. He lives in Huntington, N.Y.

That's the serious side. He's also a very funny poet, with warm, unique insight on the trick to being a sensitive guy in the modern word!

PLUS the ALWAYS EXCITING fabulous OPEN READINGwhich you can participate in (sign ups start at 5:45 p.m.)

Doug Collura

Doug Collura is a Manhattan-based writer who has recited at the open mikes around town for the last twenty-seven years. He's been both a Third Prize winner and a finalist in the 1998 Allen Ginsberg Poetry Awards, and a Second Prize winner in the 1999 Allen Ginsberg Poetry Awards, along with being an Editor's Choice selection for the Paterson Literary Review. He is the author of a spoken word CD The Dare of the Quick World and the book Things I Can Fit My Whole Head Into, published by Jane Street Press, which was a finalist for the 2007 Paterson Poetry Prize. His work can be read and heard at his Web site, www.douglascollura.com. In addition to numerous publications in the Paterson Literary Review, he has been published in Lips Magazine,The Cynic and other periodicals, Web sites and webzines.

Here's a sample poem from the incredible book Things I Can Fit My Whole Head Into

Announcement at the Dinner Table

Kids, shut up. Daddy has an announcemnet.Sally, stop screaming.Sidney, stop stabbing Sally.I don't care if it's only a butter knife,she's bleeding all over the flank steak.Janet, you're the mommy.If you can't control these psychopaths,at leaset stop stuffing your mouth and smiling as if nothing's wrong.I'm sick of coming home from a day of sneak attacks at the officeto endless frontal assaults on the home front.I'm giving you all ten minutes to run away from home.That's right, Sidney, when the big hand lands on the twelve.After that, I'll be firing this gunat any living thing in this house that's not me.Including the dog, so take that piss-happy idiot with you.And years from now, kids, don't come back looking for your roots.This root will have changed his name.Now flee. Flee as far as fear will carry you.

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Be sure to catch the incredible Canadian spoken word artists AURAL Heather (featuring Heather Haley and Roderick Shoolbraid). This will definitely be one of those one of a kind nights that we'll be talking about for years to come!

What: Son of a Pony Reading SeriesFeatured Poet: AURAL HeatherHost: Kathi GeorgesWhere Cornelia St. Cafe (29 Cornelia St. between W. 4th & Bleecker); (212) 989-9319When: Doors open 5:45; open reading starts at 6 (show up early to get your spot)

AURAL Heather is Heather Haley, Roderick Shoolbraid and "a unique, sublime fusion of song and spoken word." Shoolbraid is a dazzling guitarist, composer, sound designer and DJ. Old School and proud of it, Haley is a maverick poet, singer, author and media artist often found pushing boundaries and always on the vanguard.

"A Canadian national treasure," Haley started writing verse in high school influenced by poets like bp Nichol, ee cummings and Susan Musgrave. Her life as a bona fide artist began on the stage of the infamous Smilin’ Buddha fronting the all-girl punk band the Zellots. She was a member of The 45s with Randy Rampage and Brad Kent of the big-time punk bands DOA and the Avengers. Later she formed HHZ-Heather Haley & the Zellots--praised by LA Weekly music critic Craig Lee as one of the city’s "Ten Great Bands."

"Supple and unusual," her work asks all the questions a nice girl’s not supposed to ask. Haley is a gutsy and compelling performer who enjoyed a stint as an official BC Transit busker and has appeared at the Burning Word Festival, the Vancouver International Writers Festival, Crush Champagne Lounge, the Lamplighter Pub, Rime, Thundering Word Heard, the Art Bar in Toronto, Words & Music in Montreal, the Bowery Poetry Club in New York City, Red Sky Poetry Theatre in Seattle, Shakespeare & Sons in Prague, the Roar Lit Crawl with Edmonton’s Raving Poets band and on CBC and Book Television. Catch a sneak preview at www.myspace.com/auralheather

Don't miss this rare catch to catch AURAL Heather in NYC. See you there!

Saturday, July 12, 2008

Reviews of Die Soldaten, the mid-20th Century opera by Bernd Alois Zimmerman at Park Ave. Amory, have been generally positive. The reviewers comment on the amazing technical feat achieved by director David Pountney of having the audience on a moving platform that traverses the length of a 10-foot 9-inch stage. They never fail to dwell upon the technical nature of the music, led by conductor Steven Sloane, which is based on a 20th century Germanic invention of the 12-tone scale, and performed by a 110-piece orchestra, a percussion ensemble, a jazz combo, along with the 40-member cast. Reviewers also generally comment on the astounding vocal skills of these singers. And they give a brief run down of the plot of the misadventures of a sweet girl, Marie (the incredible Claudia Barainsky), who loses everything, including her dignity, virginity, money and father in the quest for love. The New York Times even called it "a miraculous realization of an opera once deemed unperformable."

It is so much more. More than opera, more than drama. Pure art. Resonating. Reverberating. Opening windows to parts of your soul you haven't looked at for a long time. For me, it was total immersion.

The first scene: A 110-piece orchestra strikes a chord of total tension. Soldiers march down a narrow ramp, carrying a bed that could be a coffin. Marie and her sister follow, wearing brown shirts, come skipping down the narrow stage, alternating with a goose step they laugh at. The audience moves with them, leaving the outside world behind, drawn--slowly, slowly--into their world. A bed, a love letter, a dreamy boy who's fallen in love with the girl next door. A mother who wants him only to work. Marie's sister, telling her not to believe in love. That the end of happiness is always pain. Acting that shifts from expressionistic movements to naturalism.

As we move into this scene, tears stream down my face. This "total theater" which the author Zimmerman sought, has been achieved in its entirety. It's so beautiful to be allowed to abandon the self. Like a rock 'n' roll show, but so much deeper. More than spectacle. My heart is being twisted in and out of knots.

Back out. The exterior world. Soldiers in a bathhouse, chastisizng the chaplain.

Back out. A bar scene, with the playground mentality in full swing. In this mix: an amateur Nietzschean philosopher that the others laugh at, while demonstrating that they act exactly as he describes. Overtones of World War II. And I. And the one before that. And the one after that. And before that. And after that.

And so on. Scene after scene, you move through a study of the ideas that have guided the acts of the human race for the last 2,500 years. And all lead to this incredible sensation that the only beautiful thing left to us is not love, but art. And that art has been turned into a whore no one respects anymore. That's just what the boys of the playground called her. And in some ways, that's what the critics call Die Soldaten: focusing so much on the technical aspects of the show, the 12-tone music, the plot--as if it all was just some good blow job, well worth the $50-$250 ticket price.

But Marie was never a whore. And she's not just some chick that falls for three guys in a kind of speed dating routine and ends up getting raped--in a scene so shatteringly staged that I shudder from it still. The tears came again as we moved into this horrific scene, which was staged like a film. Marie transformed into three Marie's, all being simultaneously, visciously raped by Santa Claus-like figures, and men in tuxedos wearing terrifying pig masks (the rich at play; overtones of Eyes Wide Shut).

No, Marie is art. Real art. Pure art. The kind that doesn't whore itself out for financial gain or love. In the final scene, after she sees her father and he fails to recognize her, the father (god?) walks away up the stage toward the corpses of the men Marie loved once. Marie--or, what's left of art--walks toward the audience moving in time to fading music. Moving toward us, but never past us. For we are moving backwards--in thought, in mindset, and in our ability to recognize art for what is: all that we have left of love.

Hidden Wheel

Hidden Wheel, Michael T. Fournier's debut novel, is an unflinching, reflection of the growing complexities of navigating art, commerce, and the internet. Its use of intersecting plotlines illustrates the confusion and potential of the early 21st century and the evolving ways in which its inhabitants try to make a mark in the specter of financial upheaval and shifting technologies.

Inheriting Craziness is LIke a Soft Halo of Light

Thomas Fucaloro's spectacular first collection of poetry is a beautiful, raw, intense read. According to Emily Kagan Trenchard, curator of the louderARTS Project, "Thomas Fucaloro’s particular gift is to harness the crazed wisdom at the bottom of the bottle, to scrape a fleck of beauty from the underside of a binge, and to call madness by a name so familiar we can’t help but recognize it in ourselves." In these 57 poems, Fucaloro brings to light new angles of perception of madness, addiction and modern urban living. Each poem takes risks in form and content. As author Jon Sands notes, "To read Thomas is to literally discover each line with him. There's really nothing he won't say. He's as surprised as you are."

DRUNKYARD DOG

DrunkYard Dog by Peter Carlaftes is a collection by a new poetic master who has honed his intense, insightful and inspiring poetic voice on the playgrounds of the Bronx, and the bars of Manhattan. Tales of bartender blues and bliss, injected with hope in a mileau of madness swirl into a powerful poetic cocktail. Carlaftes offers a brilliant poetic voice, filled with drop-dead humor, searing insight and resilient originality, even while resonating with overtones of Bukowski, Baudelaire and Bogart.

TRIUMPH FOR RENT

Playwright Peter Carlaftes presents three compelling, funny and biting dramas in Triumph for Rent: Three Plays (Three Rooms Press, 182 pages, 2010). The plays include Spin-Dry: An hilarious wild ride through a 90s rehab center for celebrities; Hunger: inspired by the Knut Hamsun novel; and Frontier A-Go-Go, a time travel piece uniting the hippie 60s, nerd/rave 90s and techno future. "As with Strindberg, Beckett, or even Satre—Carlaftes' message seems to be something we intuit . . . like music." SF Weekly.

A Year On Facebook

Peter Carlaftes has built a huge FB following and kept them in stitches with his hysterical status updates. A year's worth are collected here. This will have you ROTFL for months! 184 pages, $13.95

WHEN NIGHT SALUTES THE DAWN

TWITTER THEATER

Award-winning playwright Larry Myers delivers a vital and funny play about networking phenomenon Twitter, that examines the profound changes technology has brought to society and theater.

PROGRESSIVE SHOTS

In the final book of his Bar Poems series, Poet Peter Carlaftes produces a rare riot, full of humor, insight and drop dead originality, while resonating with overtones of Bukowski, Budelaire and Bogart. Info: threeroomspress@mac.com

MARY ANDERSON'S ENCORE

In “Mary Anderson’s Encore,” award-winning international playwright Larry Myers explores the great American tragedienne, Mary Anderson, who skyrocketed to fame with her first role, and retired by age 30. Called by the New York Daily News “One of Off-Broadway’s wittiest & more prolific playwrights,” Myers’ works have been seen in Rome, Italy at Teatro Olimpico & Scotland’s Edinburgh Festival, as well as Anchorage, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Louis­ville, San Francisco & Los Angeles.

PRAISE FOR WHAT REMAINS

Angelo Verga's epic new poem roams the territory of Wall Street greed, blasts apart sacred cows of the finance community and in unparalleled beautific poetic form, dissects the clotted heart of the beast that led to the unprecedented global financial crisis. A must read for anyone losing their faith in the system.

SIT YR ASS DOWN OR YOU AIN'T GETTING NO BURGER KING

Dominique Lowell, the "Janis Joplin of Spoken Word," has come back with a powerful punch with her first book in 10 years. Be prepared to be blown away by this one.

WE ARE RELATED

by Susan Scutti. The East Coast has been familiar with Susan Scutti's dynamic and heartfelt work for years. Now she has collected the best of her most recent work in a stunning volume that addresses issues of aging parents, alzheimer's, memories of youth and her enduring love for New York City. At times tender, other times terse, Scutti's direct style belies a deeper complexity, while allowing for multiple levels of enjoyment. A real jewel, hot off the press.

Sheer Bardom

Take one part Bukowski, one part Baudelaire, and one part raw New York energy and stir. You still won't get close to the beat of Pete, in his lively poems that uncover the beauty of the horror of death and life in the Big Apple.

Splitting Hairs

A new voice joins the Three Rooms Press roster: The Bass Player from Hand Job. His witty, incisive poems compel the reader to rethink ideas--such as "global warming"--which have been manipulated by the media to the point of redefinition. This book is for the reader who wants to get to the core of everything, with a free form that moves from rant to poetic beauty in the space of a stanza.

to[o] long

Jackie Sheeler celebrates the release of her first Three Rooms Press book, to[o] long, a hard-hitting collection of prose poems that delve into the intricacies of urban sex, love, loss and redemption. Available now!

One Foot Out the Door

One Foot Out the Door, poems by Karen Hildebrand is a stunning collection of work, that paints crisp, dagger-like images of love and beauty in this era of self-imposed disconnection from both.

Slow Dance at 120 Beats A Minute

NOW OUT! The long-awaited poetry collection by Kathi Georges. In the voice of various personae, Georges tackles the taboo in 10 poems that explore the highs and lows of the female psyche in the bizarre creature we call the "Modern World." $8. Reserve your copy now by emailing threereoomspress@mac.com